I had a though the other day that it would be nice to know what the kit on the outside of the car was doing. So i came up with quite a nice idea, but i'm not sure whether many people would want it...

It is simply another 7-segment display that would sit beside your main red one. But it would be a tri-colour one, (had a quick search on the web, there are some available but cost a bomb!) which you couls program the different segments to show what certain pixels were doing around the car.

You would have control of 8 leds on the device, so there is scope to put the front UFO tube on the top segment the side ufo tubes on the sides of the display, and the rear tube on the lower segment, the scanner could then go on the middle segment, and you still have the '.' (decimal point) spare!

This would be particularly helpful for when the new serial control module is released for when you link the UFO tubes to the side/tail/indicator lights, you would then know what is happening outside! (and it would look pretty cool!)

The other idea i had was just to get four of the new 'MEDUSA' kits and use one of the pixels from each kit to light up under a model of your car on the dash! Giving you a scaled down car with UFO!

Let me know your opinions!

Tall_Paul

_________________==============================
My Impreza is now even more 'Imprezive'
with the UFO fitted!
==============================

It sounds pretty interesting ! But since I don't have any knowledge of electronics, I wouldn't be able to tell you if this would be possible. Adrian and Iceledman are the people you''d want to get an answer from.

_________________Duct Tape is like the Force....It has a Light Side and a Dark Side.....and it binds the Universe Together......

Shame it can't be done so easily. The explanation for this is technical (so you might just want to skip to the final paragraph ) The processing power of a 1' tube is is max'd out driving nine different LEDs to any of 128 intensity levels, at a flicker-free refresh rate. These nine LEDs represent just 3 pixels!

UFO uses distributed processing to acomplish what it does - i.e. there are 14 of these little max'd out processors all hammering away to produce the overall patterns. This is what gives UFO its unique capabilities and sets it apart from all the other kits on the market and also accounts for the higher price-tag.

Even if more expensive processors were thrown-in to 'up' the bandwidth, the basic architecture is still divided into four separate data channels. To collect all the pattern data required to put up a 'telltale display' would mean having four asynchronous uarts. All this is pushing what sounded like a simple requirement towards a very expensive solution. It's a great idea but would cost an arm and a leg.

If the market for digital car lighting was on the same scale as car stereo and ICELED was something the size of JVC or Pioneer, then yes, you might expect to see this sort of thing happen - but unfortunately that's not the case. You're buying in an extremely niche market which is currently only properly served by hard-working enthusiasts like us

I'm guessing there might be scope for a GUI on the BT module that will show realtime effect? Or again is that tricky to do? The refresh wouldn't need to be high, And it only needs to be a 'this tube is on / off' signal.

Either that, or i'll build another of my 'low tech' solutions!

Or i'll just try and persuade you to customise the MEDUSAs i'm gonna buy, so that they have 7 LEDs rather than 6!

Cheers!

T_P

_________________==============================
My Impreza is now even more 'Imprezive'
with the UFO fitted!
==============================

What I was trying to explain is that it can be done in principle, but although we only want a small display with a handful of LEDs, it still requires nearly as much processing as the complete UFO kit. This has a "you can't dodge it" cost attached to it, so it would not be as cheap to make as you might expect.

Then again, so long as the cost doesn't stifle the demand and you don't mind connecting a five-way cable to some of the UFO outputs, it could be a possibility. It should work out somewhat cheaper than a camera and monitor anyway!

id be interested in this....my varad kit used to have a simple diplay like this using 4 l.e.d's on the control box which would just crudely copy the pattern of the side tubes i.e...they would sweep back and forth, strobe, pulse.. etc.....it's just useful to know whats goin on...also it means i dont have to remember the iceled patterns, which can be quite a task

I've been scratching my head quite a bit over this one. It turns out to be reasonably practical to reproduce the side-tube pattern (like MadJon sketched) with six integrated RGB LEDs (even though with this simple sounding requirment the circuit has 18 individual LED drivers ).

But add to this the extra parts for decoding the front and rear tubes and it starts to get pretty hairy. For one thing, having front/side/rear on the display calls for another set of six LEDs for the opposite side-tube. This then needs a larger, rectangular, area to display everything in... and when it comes to wiring-up it needs three data connections and two for power. Not out of the question, but...

...If, on the other hand, the display was restricted to just the side tube pattern then it becomes a neat line of six LEDs and a standard three-wire connection. I've prototyped just this bit and have to say it's rather sweet. The great thing is you can see a suprising amount of detail in the pattern, and when you change the colour range the display does a good job of representing the six palette colours

But I can't say I'm decided. The idea of a complete overview is still very attractive. One other very big problem to overcome is how to house the display. Being realistic, not many of these would ever get sold so a purpose-made injection molded enclosure is out of the question. But it's not really practical as a "bare-board" product - is it

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum